Independence Day

Today is the Fourth of July, the day the U.S. of A. declared its independence in the year 1776. It has since become the national holiday; however, since today is also Sunday, the actual holiday will be on Monday, by law. (By the same law, the holiday is on a Friday when the Independence Day is on a Saturday, like last year.)
However, regardless of the importance of this day to the Americans, my colleagues and I had to spend some time in the lab today. We were of course particularly unhappy about going to work on a Sunday that is also the national holiday, but we had a big maintenance day on Friday that required additional measures on two extra days. While it would have been possible to postpone the extra work until after the celebrations, it would have meant that the experiments can be resumed only by Wednesday. Time is always an issue in our lab, so we had to go through with this. At least on the way home I caught a glimpse of the decoration of our street with a host of Star Spangled Banners. Someone is doing this every year, and I did take a few pictures last year, but I hope the video will reveal better the affection of the Americans for their country. I apologize for going to work today, but at least I would like to say to everyone, "Happy Birthday America!"

"This train will run Express"

As every day when I go to work, I commute via the Elevated train, more precisely the blue line. (See the photo for all the stops.) I live near Oak Park (here referring to the station, because I currently live in the municipality of Oak Park), and my work is at UIC/Halsted. Earlier on this week, on my way home, the train started to run Express, which usually happens if it had been too slow, and another train line is right behind it. Express trains skip a certain number of stations, which is usually good for me, because Express service typically starts at UIC/Halsted, Racine, or Illinois Medical District. It typically ends at Cicero, Austin, or even Oak Park. This time, the Medical District, which is by the way also where Rush University Medical Center is, where I got my recent conjunctivitis treated, was again the starting point for Express; however, the train operator did not manage to inform the customers about this properly. Perhaps she did announce it, but either way it later became evident that the speakers in the train were malfunctioning. Yet the sign on the train did show Express, along with a flashing red light. Now, I understand that it is quite inconvenient to be trapped on an Express train you don't know it is one and then go many stations further than you actually wanted. Yet that is, in my humble opinion, no reason to puckishly activate the emergency opening mechanism of the doors to make the train stop. This then led to an extended halt, because the operator could not override this and had to search for the door in question, before she could continue our ride. I don't know how long we were staying there, but it sure felt like 15 minutes. Then, finally, we started moving again, and we reached Cicero. For one moment the speakers actually worked, and it was announced that the train would run Express to Austin. That was a bit weird, because Austin is the very next stop anyways. I assume that Austin was the original end of the Express run, but then the time we lost on the door incident gave of course the following train more than enough time to catch up with us, so our train then had to run Express from Cicero all the way to the end of the line at Forest Park. Therefore, I had to wait at Cicero for the following train to get home. To sum up, this so-called Express run, combined with a speaker malfunction and a bratty attitude of a fellow CTA customer, gave me the chance to expand my average commute time of 20 minutes to almost one hour. At least the next train was not so crowded - another downside is of course that the subsequent train has to accomodate about twice as many passengers.
I would like to conclude this post with a link to a video of an old Madonna song, "Express Yourself". It even has some trains at the beginning. - I am, by the way, anything but a huge fan of Madonna. But that is only appropriate, because I do not want to waste my favorite music on something stupid.

Blackout!

The night I came back from Wisconsin I had the unpleasant surprise of finding that the electricity in the entire neighborhood was killed! Well, I have been in power outages before, so I assumed the power would come back shortly. Ha! After spending the entire night in complete and utter darkness I learned from my landlady that the authorities say it would take "several days" to fix the problem. I don't quite understand why it has to be so slow. Clearly, in a gritted city like Chicago (and its suburb Oak Park, my current home), a power outage in a well-defined area indicates a problem in the feed into that area. That junction should be quickly found, shouldn't it? We have been without power now for more than 24 hours, and a remedy is not in sight. For some reason the German saying, "sich schwarz ärgern" comes to my mind, meaning "to turn black in anger". No light, no cooking, no fridge/freezer, no laundry, no TV, no internet (I"m so desperate that I am writing this in the lab at 8 pm on a Saturday) - even our water is heated electrically! So in order to kill some time I decided to go and see a movie, but there was none I would have liked. Remember, I couldn't check the shows online, so I only found out in front of the theater, which is 40 min walking from my home. And then, on the way home, disappointment was joined by humiliation, because the storm that had killed our power decided to return and make me soaking wet. I''l keep you posted.
Update: After a total of about 25 hours the power finally came back.

Wisconsin

Like any other scientist, I have to attend conferences once in a while. After going to San Jose last November, I had now the chance to bring up my state count to five. I currently live in Illinois, I went to Georgia to meet my friends Heather and Jon, I went to California for another conference, and finally I spent the New Year's Eve and Day 2010 in Michigan. (I didn't write about the last one, but it was very nice!) The Physical Electronics Conference 2010 was held in Milwaukee, WI, so there was not much traveling needed. My colleague Jun (who later made the second place in the poster presentations) drove us about 100 miles north, always following more or less the lakeside. The first night there was just a welcome reception. Fortunately I had the opening slot for the entire conference, so soon enough I could get over with my talk (which went okay, should anyone care). Then I could relax (and wear more comfortable clothes, even though I enjoyed being able to show off my posh outfit another time) and follow the other presentations without worries. Fortunately the first World Cup matches of each day finished just in time for the first session of the day, so I could even watch Germany-Serbia live! Unfortunately the game was just the worst case scenario for Germany - after about half an hour they had to play with one man down, due to a red card, then one minute later Germany scored the only goal of the game, and to conclude a truly abysmal experience, after about one hour Germany missed a penalty kick. Then I was ready to go home to Chicago!

Sports

Sports are important in the United States. They are also important in Europe, including Germany. However, the kinds of sports people consider important on their respective side of the Atlantic Ocean are different. Americans' top four are: American football, baseball, basketball, ice hockey. Europeans favor soccer, soccer, soccer, soccer. That said, I must confess I am double lucky! First, on Wednesday the Chicago Blackhawks won the Stanley Cup for the first time since 1961. (Alas, the drought is naught!) Second, the FIFA World Cup 2010 has kicked off today.
Yet, while I enjoy living in the city of the new NHL champion, I am by no means a die-hard ice hockey fan. I did buy a hat a while ago (see photo), but merely to show my affection for my current home town. I also have various other merchandise items from the Chicago Bulls (basketball), the Chicago Cubs (baseball), the Chicago Bears (American fottball), and even the Chicago Fire (soccer). In fact, I learned about the Hawks' successful season only when they entered the Final Four, because then the city-wide hype got so large it reached even me. Still: yay for the Hawks! Good job, guys!
However, now it is soccer time! Unfortunately, the time difference between Chicago and South Africa, the host nation, is not exactly in favor of my plans on following the matches. Kick offs are 1:30 pm, 4 pm and 8:30 pm local time, which is 6:30 am, 9 am and 1:30 pm in Chicago. I am willing to get up for the first match, but if I watch the second one at home, I won't be able to start working before noon, which is unacceptable. Hence, forget about the third match, too. That wouldn't be so bad, if there were matches at 6:30 am every day. That slot won't be used anymore before we are even half way through. And that's when the play-offs start, when it actually becomes really interesting!
You know, Germany needs any supporter they can get. Across the world Germany still has a bad reputation for historic reasons. It is because back in the 1930s the government turned the entire population into haters ... and I now found evidence how it was done: they had Hass avocados! If you are no speaker of German: Hass means hate. As you can see with your own eyes, both the Anglophonic and Francophonic world have seized this infamous fruit and are dealing it out recklessly to anyone. (Even to me, for that matter!) What's even worse: they are luring people into eating it by advertising how "mild" this guacamole were!
Anyways, enjoy the World Cup, everyone! No hating! May the best team win! As for Dr. Feltes, it will be South Africa, as it is where she will start a new job next month.

Another PhD!

This is a picture of my friend Theresa and me. Before I introduce her, please look at my eyes - no more redness! There are less than three days in between the peak of the conjuntivitis and the present photograph. Yay for the doctors at Rush!
But now back to the important part. Theresa began this day as Ms. Feltes, and she ends it as Dr. Feltes! Congratulations to her with all my heart! She successfully defended her dissertation and will soon be officially bestowed upon the academic degree of Doctor of Philosophy, but actually in Chemical Engineering. Some of her experiments were done in the same room where I currently do mine - if you care about going back and looking for yourself, see photos here and here; the blue chair in the background was occasionally hers.
As much as I am sad about her departure for the next stage in her career (postdoc), I am happy for her, because I am enjoying the exact same experience right now. Good luck to you, Theresa, you will be greatly missed!

Conjunctivitis

I am usually a pretty healthy person, with no persistent problems. However, I have been recently haunted by a strong cold, which kept me away from work for half a week. Earlier on this week, the infection apparently resurfaced to have a rematch with me, this time affecting my eyes (see photo). As I was later told by a doctor, the symptoms are those of a conjunctivitis. I thought so myself, as I have had some before, but I didn't know the English term for what Germans call Bindehautentzündung. Yet it became apparent to me that the two must be the same: a (con)junction is something that binds several items together; hence the first part of the German disease. Haut means skin, referring to the membrane that the conjunctiva is. Finally, Entzündung means inflammation, indicated by the suffix -itis.
I have outlined before that such language geekiness is one of my pet pass times, and I thought after all the emphasis on potential transatlantic divisions it is nice that despite the Germans using a Germanic descriptor and the Anglophones a Greek one, the described concept is the same in both languages: a little piece of skin that connects two other parts of the eye is burning. I can find true delight in such parallelism, even if I am the one with the red eyes ... only five months shy of Halloween!